Our Corporate Bureau Posted online: Monday, August 23, 2004 at 1524 hours IST Updated: Monday, August 23, 2004 at 1540 hours IST
New Delhi, August 23: Business confidence in India Inc is cloudy. The latest business confidence survey (Q1 2004-05, capturing six weeks of election time and the remaining period under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) conducted by Ficci says overall, business confidence index has declined to 66.7 from 75.2 between Jan-March 2004.
A large number of respondents are not planning to add employees. They feel that the level of employment will re-main more or less static. Also, Indian industry is increasingly feeling the heat of competition from imports, the survey said.
The pofitability index, after having declined to 32 in the last survey, has further fallen to 24. While 34 per cent of the companies believe there would be no change in their profits in the next six months, 21 per cent feel their profits will decline. Forty-five per cent, expect profits to rise.
The overall investment index has remained at the level as in the last survey. With 44 per cent expecting an increase in their investments and about 10 per cent expecting a decline, the index is static at 34.
The survey elicited res-ponse from 414 firms with a wide geographical and sectoral spread, whose revenues ranged from Rs one crore to Rs 60,000 crore. These respondents are spread across sectors like pharma, textiles, telecom, food and beverage, financial services, paper, metal and metal products, chemicals and fertilisers, and machinery.
The current overall economic conditions have been viewed as moderately to substantially better by almost 50 per cent of the respondents.
